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MLB News & Moments: Modern Iron Horses Homer on Lou Gehrig Day

Kyle Harrison gets the last laugh

Pablo Figueroa
MLB Morning News 4 Hours Ago

Stay updated on everything baseball with our morning MLB News & Moments articles. We’ve got you covered to keep you in the know.

As has happened on every June 2 since 2021, MLB celebrated Lou Gehrig Day, both as a way to honor the legendary Yankee and to raise awareness of ALS and the efforts to find a cure. As baseball is unmatched in terms of embracing the past and bringing it to the present, honoring Gehrig is a great way of representing the values and tradition of the sport we love.

Gehrig was known not only for his endurance and his Hall of Fame career, but also for becoming one of the first great ambassadors of the game. In a true tribute provided by the baseball gods, the two players who hold the longest active consecutive games played, Matt Olson and Pete Alonso, homered on Lou Gehrig Day.

 

Today’s Headlines

 

Double the Power

At the epicenter of Lou Gehrig Day, the Bronx Bombers started the day with some tough news, as Aaron Judge was not available to play due to a shoulder injury. The ominous absence carried onto the field as the Yankees hosted the Guardians in a matchup of heavy AL contenders. Despite having ace Cam Schlittler on the mound, Cleveland’s high-contact approach overwhelmed the righty, who battled through 4.1 innings while allowing five runs against only three strikeouts. The game would be decided by a series of key doubles by Cleveland, as José Ramírez collected three of them as he drove in two runs, while rookie Travis Bazzana blew the game open with a three-run two-bagger in the eighth that turned a tight 6-4 game into a 9-4 laugher. The Guardians’ bullpen was stellar, holding the Yankees scoreless through five innings, negating an early valiant effort from Paul Goldschmidt, who got all four RBI for New York and came a triple shy of the cycle.

Might as Well Jump!

With the A’s and their potent offense visiting Wrigley Field, starting an untested rookie on the mound, it all seemed ripe for a high-scoring affair. The Cubs started the game with two straight hits and took the lead on an RBI groundout, but rookie Gage Jump was unfazed and simply kept going, allowing only one more hit and a walk over the next six frames. Opposite Jump, Chicago’s Jameson Taillon labored through several potential rallies, but settled to allow only two runs on a Nick Kurtz solo homer in the third and a Zack Gelof RBI single in the fourth. That 2-1 score would hold until the end, allowing Jump to earn his first career win and give us a glimpse of his potential. While the A’s bullpen made things interesting in the ninth, Hogan Harris came in to get the final out and secure his fifth save of 2026.

Bryce as Nice

In a battle of NL contenders, the Phillies barely outlasted the Padres, winning 3-2 in a game defined by Bryce Harper heroics and a clutch bullpen. San Diego opened the scoring with a Gavin Sheets two-run homer, but that would be the only damage allowed by Aaron Nola, who had one of the best starts of his season by tossing five innings with eight strikeouts and only two runs on his ledger. Meanwhile, Harper matched Sheets with a two-run blast in the fourth and would score the winning run in the sixth on a double-play grounder. Philadelphia’s bullpen held the fort despite having some traffic on the bases, highlighted by closer Jhoan Duran striking out the side in the ninth to earn his 13th save of the season.

Revenge of the Lefty

The only reason Kyle Harrison does not appear near the top of most pitching leaderboards is that he is a couple of innings below the line for being qualified. In any case, it is time to pay attention to his Cy Young candidacy, even in a crowded NL field. The southpaw was on a mission last night, especially facing the organization that first gave up on him, as the Giants failed to show patience for their once-prized prospect, shipping him out in the 2025 trade for Rafael Devers. Harrison found no respite in Boston, but it has all been different in Milwaukee, as he is showing why he used to be such a high-ranking promise. Harrison started his day with ten strikeouts through the first four innings, as the Brewers had an early 3-0 lead. Even as the Giants got him to labor a bit in the end, he still matched a career-high 12 Ks, with only a solo homer allowed in 5.2 frames. Milwaukee secured an 8-3 win with a late outburst, giving Harrison his seventh W of 2026, along with a shiny 1.57 ERA. Meanwhile, Devers earned a golden sombrero and went 0-for-5 at the plate, as San Francisco continues its trainwreck of a season.

Exploding Kittens

A day after putting up 10 runs at Tropicana Field, the Detroit Tigers had a nice encore en route to an 8-0 win over the Rays. After struggling on offense for most of May, the Tigers have started June by showing signs of life, as it became apparent from the get-go. Gleyber Torres hit a lead-off homer and was followed by a Matt Vierling triple to start the game with a 2-0 lead, which would become a 5-0 advantage as Wenceel Pérez also went yard in the second. Riley Greene would cap things off with a solo shot of his own, as the eight-run outburst was more than enough for Detroit’s pitchers. Jack Flaherty cruised through five scoreless frames with six Ks, and was complemented by a rare four-inning save from Enmanuel de Jesus, who retired all 11 batters he faced after inheriting a runner in the sixth. The win for the Motor City Kittens means that the Rays have now lost seven of their past nine games.

 

By The Numbers

 

2,130 On June 1, 1925, Lou Gehrig started a streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, which ended on May 2, 1939. While the streak was once thought to be an unbreakable record, it was surpassed by Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995, and ultimately got to 2,632.

3 The Marlins opened last night’s scoring by hitting back-to-back-to-back homers. The three-homer feat became the third time in franchise history that Miami has done it.

13 After defeating the Padres 3-2, the Phillies secured their 13th one-run win of the season. They lead the league in this category and are one of only six MLB clubs with double-digit such wins.

 

Best Moments From Yesterday

 

A School of Three Fish

The Marlins entered the fifth inning of a 0-0 game without any hits recorded, as Miami’s planned bullpen game was going well but needed some offensive support. Enter Joe Mack, who not only has a great SEC football coach name, but also blasted his first career homer to give the Marlins a 2-0 lead. He would be soon complemented by solo shots from Heriberto Hernández and Otto Lopez, going back-to-back-to-back against Washington’s Miles Mikolas. While the Nationals cut the deficit and the game entered the ninth with a 4-3 score, the Fish struck back with a three-run frame, as Hernandez hit his second homer of the game to give Miami a season-high four in a single game. The 7-3 final score would provide more justice for a Marlins team that showed a rare display of power.

Getting it Dunn

In a game where the pitching lines became extremely weird, the Royals trotted out four pitchers, and each allowed exactly one hit and one run, while the Reds made the most of those four knocks. A stellar Noah Cameron start (one hit and eight strikeouts over seven innings) was squandered by Kansas City’s bullpen, as the lone hits allowed by Matt Strahm and Lucas Erceg were solo homers, including a game-tying blast from Will Benson that sent the game to extras. The other Red contributor was Spencer Steer, whose two solo homers yielded the fourth multi-homer game of his career. After the Royals failed to score the ghost runner in the tenth, the stage was set for Blake Dunn, who delivered a bloop single that won the game for Cincinnati. The 4-3 win was improbable considering the whole context of the game, but it is also important to consider that the Royals failed to get any hits after the sixth.

Howie Vibes

Pirates-Astros was a crazy game in many ways. Houston jumped to an early lead powered by a Yordan Alvarez homer, and it looked like a standard 4-2 affair as the fifth inning ended. From there, the Pirates flexed their newfound muscles as much as they could, ending the day with 10 runs, 13 hits, eight walks, and four stolen bases, along with three homers. The last of them came in the eighth, as Brandon Lowe stretched a two-run lead into a five-run cushion with a three-run blast, his 15th of the season. As the ball sailed towards the right-field foul pole, it all looked eerily similar to a certain homer in the 2019 World Series, albeit from the left-handed batter’s box. If any Nationals fans caught a glimpse, it was sure to bring a smile to their faces.

Jose Canseco Vibes

One of the most notable things about the Angels’ last decade of ineptitude is that it has almost never reached a so-bad-it’s-good quality, instead choosing to be depressing and confusing most of the time. For a moment, though, the Angels reached within and gave us a great moment of unintentional comedy that shall live in blooper reels for years. Already down 7-0 to the Rockies, and having just allowed a mammoth three-run blast to Willi Castro, Colorado’s TJ Rumfield hit what looked like a routine fly ball to right center field, home of notorious homer-stealer Jo Adell. In a bizarre turn, Adell lost the ball in the lights, as it bounced off his head and went over the fence for a hilarious homer that we have probably seen before. If you are going to be bad, at least try to be entertaining.

 

Injuries and Other Moves

 

⚾ Yankees star Aaron Judge was removed from last night’s lineup due to a bone bruise that is causing pain on his right shoulder. The issue has bothered Judge for a while now, and could help explain his slow (for his standards) month of May, as he only had five homers and an .805 OPS. New York hopes this is a minor issue that does not require an IL stint, but Judge’s status will be worth monitoring for the next few days.

⚾ Houston closer Josh Hader was reinstated from the IL, leaving behind an absence that dated back to August of last year. The lefty first experienced shoulder issues that ended his 2025 and entered the next offseason with hopes of having a normal workload, but biceps tendinitis kept him sidelined to start the season. Following a successful minor league rehab assignment, he will try to make an impact for an Astros team that owns the second-worst bullpen ERA in baseball. 

⚾ The Tigers have shut down Javier Báez from all baseball activities, as his high ankle sprain has not responded to treatment. Baez has been out since late April, and his injury is part of a long list of disappointments for Detroit in 2026. Even as Baez had only produced a .678 OPS, his presence and veteran leadership have been considered key for an organization that is still trying to get out of its early rough start.

 

Articles You Should Read

 

Josh Bell Remembers some Home Runs — David Laurila, Fangraphs

White Sox Turn a “Double Play” not seen since 1972 — Manny Randhawa, MLB.com

 

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Pablo Figueroa

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Pablo Figueroa is a Baseball Writer here at Pitcher List, with experience as a writer since 2013. He lives in Aguascalientes, Mexico - proud home of Los Rieleros. When he´s not thinking about baseball , he's a husband, owns two dogs, watches random episodes of The Sopranos , plays padel, and works on his day job to pay the bills.

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